Rhymes and Reasons
by x-mas
Summary: What do you do when your best friend betrays you? What do you do when someone almost dies? What do you do when everything you ran away from catches up with you? Lets find out.
1. Prologue

**Notes: **Hello and welcome to my first attempt at Prince of Tennis fan fiction! I'm actually being a very bad little author in starting this because I really should be finishing some other stories, but this idea has been bugging me and so it must be written! However, my beta reader is not very happy about that so this is probably going to remain unchecked. I'm very sorry! I'll try to keep my mistakes to a minimum! I'm also very sorry that this is such a short and frustratingly unrevealing opening. Think of it as a game! You can try and guess who might be narrating…I bet none of you will get it.

**Warnings: **Bad things will happen! The big things you need to know about are suicide and torture (probably of many kinds) and of course the fact that there will be gay love. Don't want to read about that kind of thing, stop right here!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of it!

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Prologue

Why? It was the one question he never asked me. It's the most natural question in the world, when someone hurts you that badly you want to know why they did it, but he never asked me. Plenty of other people did. In fact, everybody else did. They asked it like it was an easy question to answer. They asked it like human motivation is the simplest thing to explain. Even I asked it. I asked myself why I did it and I asked why he did what he did. When I remember those long nights of selfish pondering it makes me hate myself all over again because I had no right to question his motivations and he had every right to question mine and yet he never did.

Motivations. Reasons. We pluck from the air most of the time. A human beings mind is something so complex it's impossible to understand its thought processes and the logic behind the things it makes a person do. I should know. I had to answer all those questions. Why? What does that even mean? And why isn't " just because" a valid answer? It's all because of emotion. Emotions get in the way of rational thought and stop a persons actions being black and white. I seriously doubt I could have given a truthful answer to that question at the time, let alone after the event. Though, hindsight often gives us the gift of eloquence and allows us to provide answers and reasons where there probably never were any.

Hindsight. The very thing that throws the entire idea of our civilization into question, because everything is viewed in hindsight and hindsight is a thing that distorts and corrupts the reality of the past. I plan to tell you a story and a story is all it will be, though I am recounting true events and attempting to paint an accurate picture of the things that occurred, I am doing so in hindsight. This is not a diary. You are not seeing these events through my eyes as I stood there and watched them happen. You are seeing these events as I perceive them now, years after they occurred. I will try to explain myself and tell you _why _I did what I did but you must reach your own judgements, as I cannot guarantee you the truth.

You must be wondering why I'm telling you all this. The answers simple. I don't want you to hate me after reading what I have to say. I want to make sure you don't think I'm forcing you to see things my way and I want you to understand how little, logical and therefore ultimately cruel thought went into my actions. I did not set out to cause the damage I did and what I'm trying to show you is that hindsight is the only thing that allows us to see the ultimate consequences of our actions. I do not wish anyone to accuse me of making the conscious decision to produce the results I did.

But why does all that matter? Why does it matter if my actions were thoroughly premeditated or not? It matters because this is the story of how I almost killed the person I love.

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Review! Let me know what you think!


	2. The Start

**Authors Note: **I hate writing dialogue…just keep that in mind. And this is probably going to end up a lot more twisted than I intended…that's what you get when I plan these things in the study room! Also, I apologise, I'm not very happy with this chapter but this is version number 4 and I'm just going to have to leave it or I'll never get anywhere. I might rewrite it later…

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Chapter One

The beginning of a story is always the most difficult part of it to write. Like everyone else who has ever attempted to tell a story I find it very difficult to pinpoint exactly where it's beginning is. The beginning of the important events isn't necessarily the beginning of the story and there is no way you can tell a story without first allowing the audience a glimpse into the characters and their lives so they don't feel confused and lost when the story actually begins. So I will begin this story on the last day of the school year, the day before the start of yet another long summer holiday and I will begin it on the walk home from school.

For once we were walking at a leisurely pace, in no hurry, school had ended early there had been no tennis practice and there was no need to hurry home to complete any neglected homework. It was warm, the sun was shining and we had all the time in the world to enjoy our new freedom. Not that it was that new, it came around at almost exactly the same time every single year, but the extended periods spent in school made it seem like our first holiday in absolutely years. We weren't totally free of school of course, the tennis club would continue to meet almost daily, but none of us considered that a chore. Now, I'm using the word's we, our and us a lot and you must be wandering exactly who I'm talking about. I'm talking about my friends. In general terms I'm talking about the entire tennis team, Kyousuke, Tatsunori, Tetsu and Masaya. More specifically I'm talking about the three me people who help to form my quartet of closest friends, An, Tachibana-san and Shinji. That's who I'm talking about when I say we, and that's who I was walking with.

"How about we go to the street courts? Get some more practice in," Tachibana-san suggested, shooting an evil smile at me.

I rolled my eyes and didn't rise to the bait. Ever since I'd literally begged him to cancel practise on the last day of term to make it feel like a real holiday, everyone had been teasing me, making plans that involved 7 hour long marathon practices, endurance runs and other such disgustingly un-holiday like activities.

"What a good idea!" An exclaimed in blatantly artificial tones, "We've got all this free time we could stay there for hours!"

"You're really bad at this, I can tell you're not serious."

"An might have been joking but I wasn't," was the calm response, "I really do think that we need to keep up our practise over the holiday. We should start now. You know, avoid starting on the wrong foot, right Shinji?"

Shinji nodded, "Akira's getting lazy. I never thought he'd get lazy. He's far too active. That rhythm obsession makes sure he never keeps still. Perhaps Akira is ill and that's why he's so keen on not practising today."

I rolled my eyes again and glared at him. To be fair Shinji probably hadn't intended to say anything beyond the first sentence, the rest was probably meant to stay inside his head as part of his thoughts, but Shinji's thoughts hardly ever managed to stay thoughts and as they had now been spoken out loud I reserved the right to get annoyed about them, "I do not have a rhythm obsession. I'm not ill and I'm not getting lazy!"

Shinji blinked and tipped his head slightly to the side a quizzical expression on his face that changed to one of understanding as he realised that once again he'd vocalised thoughts he'd never intended to be said out loud. The realisation didn't trouble him, he was far too used to it and so were we, "So…?"

"So we'll go to the courts. Happy now?"

And as I marched off I heard An chuckle and Tachibana-san make an unkind comment about red heads and their tempers. For the record my hair is not red it is simply an odd shade of brown. Besides I wasn't even really angry, the marching off was just for show, honestly it was. I had absolutely no desire to scream and shout about the injustices of being _teased _into doing things by my friends. No desire at all. Really. Why oh why did I make any objection to the practise in the first place?

Predictably enough, at least predictably if you're familiar with the nature of the members of school tennis teams, the courts were crowded. I'd say pretty much every local team had done exactly what we had, cancelled their practise, school had gotten out early and they had ended up down here. In fact, the rest of our team had done exactly the same thing. Why did I ever attempt to fight it? Why did I just not accept that the first day of the holiday was not going to be a restful day? We were going to train and work hard…and oh my god I really had gotten lazy.

Right, that's it, I turned to face Tachibana-san, "I challenge you to a match!" because hey, can you think of a better way to get over laziness than challenging the best tennis player I know to a match which will probably involve me being run ragged?

"Ok. I accept, but lets play doubles. You can have Shinji and I'll ask," he scanned the courts searching for someone worthy of partnering him, his eyes finally settled on someone and an evil smile crossed his face, "I'll ask Fuji."

Oh great. Fuji. Not that I didn't like Fuji, I was sure that he was a very nice person and a great friend to have, but I was also sure he was very dangerous and feared for my life whenever I was in his presence. Not that I was very often in his presence, Seishun Academy was a world away from Fudomine, the school I went to, and we only ever encountered each other at tennis matches so I can't say that I've spent an extensive amount of time with Fuji. As far as I'm concerned that's a very good thing and I hope it stays like that.

Shinji had moved closer to me as Tachibana-san went to ask Fuji to play with him, "Do we have to play against him?" he grumbled quietly, "His eyes are strange. Most people keep their eyes open at all times. Fuji seems to like keeping them half closed. Anyone who walks around with their eyes half closed is a bit odd as far as I'm concerned and also isn't someone I really want to spend a lot of time with. Imagine if you ended up walking home in the dark with him, you wouldn't have the benefit of four eyes like you would if you were walking with a normal person, you'd only really have three eyes, two wholes and two halves, and that could lead to car accidents."

"I don't think we're ever going to end up walking home in the dark with him," I replied, smiling at him, "And I don't think we have a choice about playing against him either."

"It's your fault. You challenged him."

"Yes I know that." Yes I know that sounded snappy, but Shinji knows me too well to take it personally or very seriously when I snap at him.

Unsurprisingly Fuji agreed to play. He's quite good friends with Tachibana-san these days, though I don't know why. An decides to umpire. She'd much rather be playing but she does accept that no matter how good she is she can't compare to the guys when it comes to strength…yet. She's working on it and I have every confidence that she'll soon be every bit as good as the rest of us. Well, hopefully she won't ever be quite as good as me. Call me a chauvinist but I really wouldn't like to be beaten by a girl, even if it is An Tachibana!

I think that in this case, the less said about the match the better. Shinji and I are good, really good, and together we're even better. That's not boasting, look at our match history, figures don't lie. Anyway, we're good, but Tachibana-san is far better and Fuji's just as good as he is, if not better on a good day, so really, we didn't stand a chance, and we knew that when we started. I just didn't expect the match to end with me flat on my back on the tennis court begging for mercy because I was just exhausted. I'm almost certain that Tachibana-san did it on purpose, making me run, making me run more than Shinji, just in general trying to wear me out in revenge. Sometimes, I detest him and I detest the fact that he probably told Fuji to do it too and I hate the fact that Fuji probably participated gleefully and probably got at least a little too much pleasure from making me run. Bastards.

Shinji was standing over me, blinking innocently at me, "Are you ok?"

"Yes Shinji I'm fine."

"Are you going to get up anytime soon? The floor is dirty. You'll get your clothes dirty and then you'll have to wash them. You'll have to wash them anyway because they're all sweaty…"

"Shinji. Please stop thinking about my sweaty clothes."

Tachibana-san and Fuji joined Shinji to stare down at me. Fuji was smiling (obviously) and Tachibana-san was trying hard not to giggle, well he wasn't trying very hard, "I'm sorry," he said, straight face cracking in the wake of the pissed off glare I was directing at him, it probably wasn't that threatening considering I was lying on the floor, "But I can't have any of my team getting at all lazy," he stuck a hand out to help me up from the floor, I didn't take the hand, just glared, "I'll buy you ice cream."

I took the hand, "It had better be a bloody big ice cream."

"It will be," he assured me.

Now, no one could ever accuse Tachibana-san of doing things half heartedly, he always did things very thoroughly and when he had promised to do something, to say he was doing it thoroughly would almost be an understatement. So around fifteen minutes later in an ice cream parlour just down the road from the tennis courts I found myself presented with an ice cream that was so big I almost couldn't look over the top of the glass. All it needed now were musical sparklers and it really would be worthy of the term, all singing all dancing. God I love ice cream and god I love Tachibana-san. Mentally apologising for the less than complimentary terms I had been using for him in my head, I pulled out one of the huge wafers stuck through the top of the cream (it was almost as big as my hand) and munched on it happily.

"Wow, I've never seen ice cream disappear so fast," An laughed while eating her own, considerably smaller, portion much more daintily that I was.

"Akira always eats that fast when he likes something. It's a compliment."

"Yes it is! You know me too well Shinji." Mmmm…more ice cream less talk. Tachibana-san was still trying not to laugh, he still wasn't succeeding and it was making it very hard for him to eat his ice cream. Really, we're not very mature sensible people. In fact, we're positively immature. Not such a shocking thing really, looking at me and An, everyone knows we're silly, but Tachibana-san and Shinji? Shinji is the class genius and has a reputation for being deadly serious at all times. It's not true; his sense of humour is just a lot darker and more twisted than most peoples. As for Tachibana-san, he is the captain of the tennis team, he has responsibilities and other such grown up things, so he must be mature. Unfortunately, Tachibana-san's sense of humour is every bit as twisted as Shinji's and he's only responsible when he absolutely has to be.

Keeping that lack of responsibility in mind and therefore removing any possibly steadying influence from the equation, I don't think anyone would be particularly surprised to learn that once we were done with our ice cream we didn't go home like good boys. We didn't go back to the tennis courts like good tennis players. We may project a clean cut good boy image (ok, we may _try_ to project) at the tournaments to blend in with all the private school boys, but we're not in the same league as they are and therefore are a little bit rougher around the edges than they are and in our spare time do some things that people might consider…a little bad.

Don't get any dramatic ideas. We're not exactly the angelic tennis player by day, hard-core gangster by night types. For one thing, with practises morning, evening and weekends we just can't put in the hours to be proper bad boys, which takes time and dedication. No, we're very small time and really only offensive to the prim and proper, the parents of our private school rivals for example. Our early evening activities tonight consisted of heading to a local park, not the park where the street courts are located that's a nice posh park, to a local park where no one will mind if we just sit around for hours. In this park we joined up with the rest of our school friends and quite a few people I wouldn't class as friends at all, just people I spend time with, and well, had a little drink.

Not such a great crime right? You'd think we were killing people by the reactions some people have to something like that. You drink alcohol??? At 14??? Oh my! Yes, we may be 14 year olds, but that's only 6 years away from the legal age and 6 years really isn't that long in the great scheme of things. At least that's how we choose to look at it and it's really a very useful perspective. We never get extremely drunk and sitting in a park on a warm summers evening with friends and a few drinks is a very nice thing to do. Why should the adults have it all to themselves?

So we were sitting in the park, I was sitting in between Tachibana-san and Shinji until An dragged Shinji off to help her retrieve her jumper which had somehow ended up in a tree. I was watching them and smiling to myself, enjoying the opportunity, I don't often get to just sit and watch Shinji, especially not in a way that means he doesn't know I'm watching him, and Tachibana-san was watching me. He chuckled and the next sentence that came out of his mouth was the sentence that started the whole thing off.

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Thanks for reading!


	3. I'll make you a deal

Chapter Two

"I'll make a deal with you Akira," Tachibana-san said, very casually giving me absolutely no indication of the monumental bet he was actually going to make with me.

"A deal? Why? What about?"

"Why? Because I'm sick and tired of your moping and don't even get me started on the particular brand of tension that's been your speciality lately. What about? Shinji."

"Shinji?" I admit it, I didn't manage to stay casual. I blushed. I couldn't meet his eyes. My voice was at least an octave higher than normal. It was all very smooth and subtle.

Tachibana-san barely managed to avoid laughing, "Yes. Shinji. Now don't play dumb. You've got love sick puppy stamped all over you."

"Excuse me? Love sick puppy??" Lets make that two octaves now and I'm relatively sure my face is literally _scarlet._

"Yes. Love sick puppy," Tachibana-san repeated firmly, eyes twinkling evilly as he enjoyed my obvious embarrassment.

For the record, I had not been acting like a love sick puppy. That implies the sickening behaviour of a teenage girl with a short term crush on some guy she hardly even knows. Shinji is my best friend. It just so happened that I'd come to view him as slightly more than that. I'd realised that over a year ago and apart from the first week afterwards, it had not affected me or my behaviour in the slightest. Me and Shinji had been an inseparable double act since the day we met so its not like I could possibly have spent any more time with him, nor was there any need to try and get to know him better, we'd been the best of friends for _years _I knew absolutely everything there was to know about him. At least, I thought I did. Regardless, there had been absolutely no love sick puppy type behaviour.

Tachibana-san laughed as it became obvious I was no longer capable of coherent speech, "Don't worry. I'm the only one it's totally obvious to. Oh, and An."

"Oh," I managed to reply in something approaching my normal voice, "So what's this deal? Why are we talking about this now?"

"Because I reckoned you'd be less likely to explode and punch me if you'd had at least one drink."

"I'm in shock. If I wasn't you'd be bleeding."

"Oh I doubt it, you'd never get near me," and he smiled, the smile which once made Shinji comment on how he thought Tachibana-san had been a piranha in a previous life, "Anyway," he continued, slipping back into friendly captain mode, "back to the deal. Like I said, I'm tired of your moping…"

"I've not been moping!"

Again, for the record, I really hadn't. Aside from some wistful staring and sulking silences when Shinji favoured anyone with more attention than he directed at me, there had been absolutely no moping.

"Whatever. I can't take it anymore. So, I'll make a deal with you. I'll let you play music in training and let you choose the music on all the journeys to and from tournaments if you tell Shinji how you feel about him and ask him out, before the end of the summer."

I almost felt the colour drain from my face, "Out…as in out? As in, going out, as in the thing people do with their girlfriends and boyfriends?"

"Yes Akira. Out. A date."

"Oh fucking hell! No way!"

"Oh come on. Not even for the music?"

"Not even for all the friggin' tea in friggin' China!"

"You wimp."

"Yes! Yes I am. A big wimp. A wimp with a sense of _self preservation. _Do you really think Shinji is going to take kindly to a confession of love from his best friend? His _male_ best friend. I'm not about to alienate him just because _you're_ getting frustrated!"

"If you don't keep your voice down he'll be finding out if you choose to tell him or not," Tachibana-san remained cool in the face of my angry rant, he never was at all bothered by my angry outbursts.

I glared, "I really want to hit you right now."

"Well don't. Look. This is Shinji we're talking about. He has conversations with himself and can't tell the difference between thinking and talking out loud, do you really think he's going to be that close minded?"

"Those are two totally different things," I replied stubbornly.

He rolled his eyes, "Ok. How about this. I'm not even his best friend, I've only known him for a year and even I can tell that he's not the type of person who's going to freak out over something like this. He's far too level headed. You're his best friend, you've know him for…for a very long time…you should be able to make a pretty good guess at his reaction."

"No. I can't. I've never seen someone confess that they love him before."

"You stubborn little wimp!"

"Shut up!" I snapped preparing to stand up and find someone slightly less crazy to talk to.

Tachibana-san sighed and rolled his eyes, "What if I told you he stares at you almost as much as you stare at him."

With uncanny skill, he'd hit on one of the very few things that would have stopped me in my tracks. I froze, sat back down again and tried not to look too eager, "Really?"

"Yes. Really. And, he talks about you a lot."

"He talks to you about me?"

"Not exactly. But when he's mumbling, your name comes up a lot."

Ok. I admit it. Just by giving me the hope that Shinji might have feelings that were even slightly similar to mine Tachibana-san had pretty much decided things. If there was even the slightest possibility that we could be more than friends (Now. Next week. Next month. Next year. Ten years from now.) then I was going to chase that possibility to the end of time.

"Really?" I asked, just to make sure.

"Yes. Really. Come on! What do you really have to use?"

"My best friend. The person I'm closest to in this entire world."

"And we just agreed that Shinji isn't like that and wouldn't abandon you as a friend just because you love him in a less than platonic way."

"You agreed. I'm still wallowing in healthy levels of doubt."

"Wallowing is right! In doubt. In self pity…"

I think he fully deserved to be tackled. Really. I'd put up with quite a few insults from him the conversation, I'd put up with a lot! The whole conversation was just wrong. So I do not regret launching myself at him and trying to get my hands round his neck so I could throttle him until he took back the self pity thing…and the love sick puppy thing…and just everything!

It wasn't really a fight. My initial attack might have taken Tachibana-san off guard, but I wasn't really trying to hurt him so he gained the upper hand fairly quickly, pinning me to the floor with his knees and securing my hands in his to take away any chance I had of launching a counter attack. He was laughing the whole time, which was infuriating to start with and then just annoying as I struggled to move and discovered that it was totally impossible to escape.

"Is there something you two want to tell us?" a voice came from somewhere out of my field of vision. An's voice. I wriggled harder, the insinuation was dangerously close to the conversation I'd just been having with her brother. Considering I'd attacked him to avoid it I did not want my cunning plan getting turned against me.

"I don't think Akira likes that," Shinji observed, appearing in my field of vision, studying my face, "I think you should let him go."

"I agree with Shinji," I growled, kicking out, totally in vain of course.

Tachibana-san let me go, keeping a perfectly straight face as I scrabbled away, probably looking totally ridiculous, "You shouldn't have tried to strangle me then should you."

"Why were you trying to strangle Tachibana-san?" Shinji asked curiously.

"We were having a little talk about-"

Well I just had to tackle him again didn't I? I had no idea how he was planning on finishing that sentence and I just couldn't risk him blurting it out right then. Looking back, I think he knew exactly what I would do if he said that and really was just trying to wind me up. However, at the time I was not prepared to take any chances. My attack wasn't any more successful this time than it was the first time, except this time Tachibana-san simply fended me off until Shinji succeeded in pulling me away. Having his arms round me as he mumbled in concerned tones about the possible reasons for my outbursts had a very claming effect on me.

"You can let go of me now Shinji," I said, after he'd been restraining me for several minutes, "I won't attack him again."

"I certainly hope not," Tachibana-san said, climbing to his feet and attempting to rub grass stains from his clothes.

"So what exactly was going on?" An asked.

"It doesn't matter," I answered quickly, glaring at Tachibana-san as she looked at him for conformation.

He nodded, "We were just having a talk."

"The only thing that can get Akira worked up like that is tennis. Tachibana-san must have told him something about the tennis team that he didn't like. I wonder what it was but I won't ask because I don't want to get them fighting again. Tachibana-san has been holding back but he might start getting annoyed and I wouldn't want Akira to get hurt."

For the first time in a long while I took proper note of Shinji's mumbles and applied a critical and analytical approach to it. (my literature teacher would be proud!) Firstly, Shinji had looked at it all from my perspective; my feelings had been his first concern. Secondly, he was worried about my safety, not Tachibana-san, and crucially he hadn't tagged on anything that suggested that is concern was in any way linked to my ability to play tennis. Maybe Tachibana-san was right. There was hope and Shinji did reciprocate my feelings, at least to an extent.

"I wouldn't hurt Akira," Tachibana-san replied lightly, "He's far too important to the team."

For some reason, Tachibana-san's choice of phrasing made me think that he'd noticed the significance of Shinji's mumble as well. It reinforced my thoughts and my hope and well, it sealed the deal. I'd decided to give it a go the minute Tachibana-san had given me hope, but his reinforcement had persuaded me to accept Tachibana-san's time scale.

We set off home and I hung back with Tachibana-san, letting Shinji and An go in front, "I accept your deal. I'll tell him how I feel before the end of the summer."

"Well that's great! There's only one problem."

"Which is?"

"Deals changed."

"What? Why?"

"You attacked me! You tackled me to the floor! Twice! I can't let that go mate."

"So, what's changed?"

"The time. You have two weeks."

"What???"

He nodded, absolutely no hint of amusement in his face this time, "In two weeks time I want evidence of you having had a little talk with Shinji."

"Evidence? How the hell am I going to get evidence?"

Tachibana-san rolled his eyes, "Well either I'm going to get a phone call from him asking me for my advice on this situation, you're going to end up with a black eye or the two of you will be a couple. Whatever happens, I'm sure there'll be evidence."

"That is so…twisted."

"Two weeks Akira. The clock is ticking."

We'd reached my house at this point, rolling my eyes at the overly dramatic farewell I waved goodbye to the group and went inside. I had a lot to think about and once I'd reached my room I lay down on my bed my mp3 player blaring music at full volume into my ears and tried to make sense of exactly what Tachibana-san had challenged me to do.

Shinji was an absolutely amazing person, as far as I was concerned anyway. He was extremely intelligent, easy to talk to, he was interesting and not like anyone else I knew. Shinji could never really be compared with anyone, even if you ignored the talking to himself thing. He was quiet, he was thoughtful…well, you get the idea, and as far as I was concerned he was perfect. It's soppy and clichéd but its true. Considering all that I don't think its surprising that I found myself starting to image what it would be like if we were closer than we were, closer than friends. Those thoughts terrified me at first I can tell you, I acted like a total idiot, snapping at him like making him stay away would stop the utter weirdness of me falling for him. I came to terms with it though, I realised it was never going to happen, I realised that I should settle for the next best thing and just be friends with him. It was a solution. I was happy. Ok, there was still a slight longing that he would one day turn around and say something about how he loved me, but that was wishful thinking and idle dreaming.

Then along came Tachibana-san.

How dare he destroy the little rut of self-sacrifice I had dug myself into? How dare he jump in and say something that gave me hope that my idle dream was a possibility. Really it just wasn't acceptable, let's face it, you just don't do that. You certainly don't try and _match-make_ for members of your tennis team. Never mind if you're totally spot on in your assumption, you should just let it takes it course and not make ridiculous deals with confused love-sick teenagers. Not that I'm love-sick or anything. Nope.

Oh bloody hell! How on earth was I going to do this? I rolled over and beat my head into the pillow in frustration. This. Was. Just. Not. Fair! I sighed, two weeks. I had two weeks to confess that I loved my best friend. This was going to take some serious planning. It was going to take me at least a week to build up the courage. Tachibana-san was right to be over dramatic. It already felt like I was running out of time.

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Hope you liked it!


	4. Luck is all you need

**Authors Note: **Still no beta reader! But she's going to do the next chapter so hopefully, the mistakes will disappear!

Chapter Three

I was standing in the middle of a huge tennis court, but the surface of the court was covered in small pink hearts. I bent down and tried to pick one up but it snapped at my fingers, teeth appearing miraculously from some mysterious space beneath the point of the heart. Right, don't touch the hearts. I looked up and realised that I couldn't see the edges of the court, it just stretched out in all directions covered in millions upon millions of pink hearts which all quivered ominously. They probably all had teeth.

"Hello?" I called out and the hearts stopped quivering and started twitching violently. Right, don't touch the hearts and don't talk either. I started walking, I really didn't want to hang around with the evil probably man eating hearts. As I walked I became aware of a figure on the horizon, as I came closer I realised it was standing with its back to me. I walked faster, hoping that this person could explain the presence of the hearts to me. As I got even closer I recognized the figure. It was Shinji. It was Shinji wearing a luminous pink tracksuit, the hearts by his feet weren't twitching, they were circling round and round his feet, gnashing their teeth happily. I stopped a few feet from him.

"Shinji?" I spoke as quietly as possible hoping not to excite the hearts any further. He turned to face me and as he did so the hearts around his feet swirled upwards, surrounding him in a column of twisting, turning pink. It struck me as a very bad thing to happen, I reached out to try and bat the hearts away but they simply surrounded my hands, snapping at my fingers, "Shinji, what the hell is going on?" I demanded.

It was the wrong thing to do. Speaking again had a very unusual effect, Shinji's neck began to stretch and separated into three parts as they grew replicas of Shinji's head also grew at the tips of the new necks. Three heads snaking through the sky, each surrounded by its very own cluster of pink hearts. The hearts at my feet began to stir, teeth grinding against each other they rose into the air and started to cluster round me, as the hearts came dangerously close to my face….

…I woke up. Dear god I was a total wimp! I was a pathetic wimp! I really shouldn't be having dreams about a three headed Shinji surrounded by carnivores paper hearts just because Tachibana-san had told me that I had to tell Shinji that I had feelings for him. These dreams shouldn't have me jerking awake, sweating with total dread at the prospect of seeing and speaking to my best friend. I sat up and buried my head in my hands. There was no way around it, I was an utter coward.

I was a coward in more ways than one if I was going to be brutally honest. It had been almost a week since school had ended and in that week the only times I had seen Shinji were in my dreams. I had thoroughly and strategically avoided him. His texts had received short, vague responses which did not encourage conversation, whenever the phone rang I dived into the bathroom and turned the shower on so that my mother would tell whoever was calling that I wasn't available and to call back later and I had identified at least three ways to escape my house quickly and easily should Shinji turn up at my front door. Shinji had noticed that I was behaving oddly and was very puzzled and concerned by it. He'd been confiding in Tachibana-san about it. Tachibana-san sent me texts telling me I was an idiot, a coward, a wuss, a wimp etc at regular intervals. His most recent text was probably the one that had prompted the dream.

"Akira, stop being an idiot! You're making Shinji think he's done something to upset you or that there's something really wrong with you. Stop being such a wimp and talk to him, he won't bite!"

So much easier said than done! I lay back down, but I wasn't intending to sleep, even though it was around 3am. I hadn't exactly neglected the whole problem, not totally. I had conjured up several plans and scenarios which would result in me fulfilling my side of the deal.

Plan number one involved inviting Shinji to play tennis at the street courts and talking to him there. The plus points of this plan were that Shinji was unlikely to kill me in front of witnesses, it was a familiar setting where we both felt comfortable and it would therefore keep his mumblings to a minimum making it much easier to talk to him. The negative points were that I really didn't want to have such a personal conversation on a tennis court and I really didn't want it to have witnesses.

Plan number two was the long distance option, calling him up and talking to him over the phone. The pluses of that one were that he couldn't hit me straight away and gave him a chance to cool down before I had to see him. However, this really wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to talk to over the phone, besides which talking to Shinji on the phone was a notoriously difficult thing to do as he was practically phone phobic, when it came to talking on them anyway.

This only left plan number three as an option, going to his house and talking to him there. It provided the necessary privacy as all of Shinjis family would be out all day and there was no chance of them being disturbed. The only negative was that it would be very easy for Shinji to kill him in his own house and then hide the body. However, it was the only option and in the interests of never having a dream involving that much pink ever again I had to do something about this.

So that was why I was standing outside Shinji's house praying to all possible gods that he was in a good, open minded mood and that my lack of sleep the night before was not going to result in me saying a lot of stupid things. I was also praying that he wasn't going to wearing a bright pink track suite, which would be something I just couldn't handle. Before ringing the door bell I sent Tachibana-san a quick text, "I'm at his house. If he kills me, it is all your fault." And then I jabbed the door bell before my deeply buried sanity could take a hand and force me to run away, far far away.

Nothing happened. I frowned, maybe he wasn't in! Oh that would be brilliant I could get out of this insanity once and for all. Just as I prepared to walk away I heard footsteps from inside and the door opened. Shinji stared out at me, stopping in the midst of a mumbled rant about door to door salesman, judging by the few words I had managed to hear before he'd realised it was me standing there. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at me, "You've been avoiding me."

I flinched at the hurt, accusing tone, "Erm…yeah. I'm sorry. I'm here to explain. Kind of. I'm going to try and explain but I don't know if you'll understand…" I trailed off, no matter how long I'd hung around with Shinji; his mumbling habit just wouldn't ever rub off on me. Maybe this situation would be far easier if it had.

"You should come in then, instead of standing out here mumbling," despite the situation, the irony of that coming from Shinji still made me smile as I followed him in, "No ones home," he added, "They've been gone all week. It's been very boring here all by myself with no one to talk to. With Akira ignoring me I didn't really have anyone. Tachibana-san has a lot of work to do and it always feels strange to meet up with him on my own because he's our captain and it feels weird. So without Akira and with no one at home I've had a very lonely week."

He led me into the sitting room. Sitting there with him gave the whole thing an oddly formal feeling; I'd much prefer to go to his room. It was very messy and so small the only place to sit was normally on the bed and that would have made this all feel far more comfortable and informal. With him staring at me from the other end of a sofa I felt like I was in the middle of an interrogation. It didn't in any way encourage me to start talking of my own free will. Shinji managed to share my silence for all of three minutes.

"You said you were going to explain why you were avoiding me," he prompted.

"I did say that," I acknowledged, "And I will."

He waited, "When are you going to explain?"

"Right now."

Another pause, "Really?"

"Ok! It's all Tachibana-san's fault! He bullied me! He's making me do this! If I do it then he'll let me choose all the music for all the journeys next year and I hate him because it was a really cruel thing to do! And…"

"Hang on," Shinji interrupted me, "Before you start making even less sense than you are now, Tachibana-san is making you ignore me in exchange for being able to choose music?"

"Not exactly."

"Please Akira. Not making sense is my job. What is Tachibana-san making you do and what has it got to do with me?"

"If I tell you, you have to promise not to hit me."

"I promise."

"Or kill me and hide my body under the floorboards."

"I promise," he was starting to look scared and worried about my sanity. It's a bad sign when Shinji has reasonable grounds to worry about someone's sanity, then the person really must be crazy.

"Tachibana-san said I have to tell you the truth."

"About what?" Shinji was clearly trying to avoid long stretches of silence taking over again.

"You."

"And what does that mean?"

"Shinji, you're my best friend, right? You've been my best friend for years. We're close, right?"

"Yes. And?"

Women are right; men really are rubbish at the whole emotions thing. At that moment in time I would have quite happily temporarily turned into a woman, "Well. See. The thing is that…well…er…you really promise you won't hit me?" I asked again, stalling for time.

"I promise. Akira, are you feeling ok?"

"No. Look, Shinji, I think…no that's wrong, I know that I feel…that I like you. I like you as my best friend and I also like you as more," oh my god could I sound any more like a pathetic cliché.

Shinji was looking at me but for once I had no idea what his expression meant, "More?"

He really wasn't making this easy. My heart was beating at an alarming rate, I was sure I had turned an alarming shade of red and I really needed to lie down and rest. For about a month. "Yes Shinji. I love you."

He stared at me and I could have kicked myself. What the hell was I doing bringing the word love into this? If I hadn't freaked him out enough to run a mile by now that sentence would have sealed the deal. Why was I such an idiot? Why? But Shinji's expression was remaining blank and that gave me at least a little bit of hope.

"You love me?"

Well that incredulous tone wasn't that encouraging, "Yes. And can the next thing you say please not involve repeating something I said in the form of a question. Please?"

He laughed, he actually laughed at me, but the smile that accompanied the laugh was more than a little odd, "I was worried it might be something really serious. I thought you might tell me you were dying or something."

I could tell that under normal circumstances a lot more would have been tagged onto the end of the statement, but he was controlling himself. Talking slowly, thinking about and weighing each word before he let it escape his mouth. Taking that kind of care over his speech, putting that much effort into not letting something slip out through his mumbling, well it clearly indicated that Shinji was taking this conversation very seriously. It was slightly disconcerting, I'm so used to being able to gain extra information from him through what he says without meaning to that being limited like this was making me nervous.

"You think this isn't serious?"

"No. This is serious," he leaned in, making the conversation more intimate, "It's just a relief."

"A relief? What the hell does that mean?"

"Can't you guess?" he seemed to be enjoying my distress.

"No. Shinji, can you just mumble me a straight answer or do you enjoy torturing me like this?"

"I'm not trying to torture you Akira," he replied, tone gentle, the sort of voice you use to tell a small child their rabbit died, "You really have no idea do you?"

"No."

"You had no reason to be nervous about telling me this. I like you just as much as you like me."

"You do?" for a moment I was totally convinced I just hallucinated Shinji saying those words. I didn't quite allow myself to rejoice, I needed to make sure.

"Yes. I thought you'd have noticed by now. I was always hoping we'd just simultaneously gain enough courage to make a mutual confession that wouldn't involve any planning on my part. I should have known it would never happen. I knew I wasn't ever going to be brave enough and considering how long it was taking I didn't think Akira ever would either. I thought we'd just stay the same. Friends," he shook himself out of the mumbling, "I'm glad you found the courage."

"You're forgetting. Tachibana-san made me find the courage."

"Was that what you two were fighting about?"

I blushed, "He called me a love sick puppy. You'd have done the same."

"Nope. I can control my temper."

I swatted at him, he dodged. We both smiled at each other a little nervously. Ok so I'd established that he liked me and that I liked him and that was a good thing, but what the hell happened now? I could tell that the same thoughts were crossing Shinji's mind. We'd both been so preoccupied with getting to this point that now we were here we had no clue what the next step should be. We were only young after all. Young and not entirely sure where our feelings were going to take us, or where they should take us for that matter. When you're 14, relationships are new and scary territory.

"Akira…" Shinji just couldn't stay quiet. Thinking back to the chick flicks An occasionally made us watch, I prayed that this was the best thing to do. I leant forward and kissed him, isn't that what they always do at the end of the film?

* * *

Urgh. I hate this ending! But I've been glaring at it for over a week and its not going to get any better, I'll make up for it in the next chapter!

Thanks for reading!


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